


a tactile sort of guy

by Lies_Unfurl



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Blow Jobs, Crack, Exhibitionism, Grinding, Humor, M/M, POV Sam Wilson, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Public Sex, Semi-Public Sex, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (TV) Trailers, Therapy, Touch-Starved, a bit of past Bucky/Steve but like 1940s past, this is 100 percent Sam/Bucky hours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:56:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29526054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lies_Unfurl/pseuds/Lies_Unfurl
Summary: Sam learns pretty quickly that Barnes is a tactile sort of guy, but it’s still a surprise when he stops Sam in their shared hotel room post-mission and asks to suck his dick.(Bucky keeps giving Sam blowjobs after missions, and while Sam is definitelynotcomplaining, he would maybe like to know what exactly is going on.)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson
Comments: 28
Kudos: 261





	a tactile sort of guy

**Author's Note:**

> After the most recent trailer, I jokingly [made a post](https://lies-unfurl.tumblr.com/post/642597678177517568/theyre-straight-up-just-grinding-on-each-others) about Bucky and Sam being locked in a contest to get each other off without their therapist realizing. This was intended to be centered around that premise. I didn't anticipate needing 6,000 words to get there, but! that's showbiz, baby.

Sam learns pretty quickly that Barnes is a tactile sort of guy, but it’s still a surprise when he stops Sam in their shared hotel room post-mission and asks to suck his dick.

“What,” says Sam.

“Your dick,” Bucky says, sounding somewhat impatient. There’s a smear of ash on his right temple from when the HYDRA base decided to self-destruct. “Can I suck it?”

“Uh,” says Sam. Even though the drive back from the base’s smoking remains took over an hour, he’s still feeling the adrenaline in his veins. At least, that’s the explanation he’s going with for the light-headed unsteadiness that’s currently consuming his mind. “Are you okay?”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “You can say no. I’m not gonna throw myself onto the bed, weeping like some Old Hollywood starlet.”

“Didn’t think you were,” Sam says, and then, before he can stop himself, “and I didn’t say no.”

Bucky’s eyes glint with something Sam can’t quite read. “That mean you wanna say yes?”

“I feel like we should talk about this.” A distinct note of desperation has crept into Sam’s voice without his permission. 

Also without permission, his dick has hardened. God damn it.

“You have a dick. I have a mouth. Tale as old as time.” Bucky glances down at the extremely obvious bulge in Sam’s tac pants, then slowly drags his eyes up. “Unless you’re too chicken?”

“Unless I’m—man, that doesn’t even make _sense_!”

“No, I get it.” Bucky shrugs all exaggerated, slow and casual, and starts turning away. “You’re a therapist. You overthink everything; it’s who you are. You feel like if you say yes, it’s gonna make things _complicated_. You’ll probably lie awake all night, staring at the ceiling, trying to find some hidden meaning, when all I wanted to do was enjoy a little bit of cock.”

“ _Fuck you_ , I don’t _overthink_ —and it is _not_ a ‘little bit’ of cock!”

Bucky smirks and stretches, languid as a cat who just beheaded a canary. “Whatever you say. It’s fine.”

“Do it,” Sam demands.

His smile much more real this time, Bucky spins back around to face him fully. He rests his metal hand on Sam’s hip, thumb slipping under the waistband. Sam shivers, his skin suddenly extremely hot beneath the cool metal.

“You sure about that, Wilson?”

The question is asked lightly enough, but Sam knows Bucky well enough by now to know that it’s sincere. If he wants to, he can back out now, and Bucky won’t even rib him for it. It’ll be just like this conversation never took place, except Sam will spend hours wondering what the hell just happened, and also he’ll have blue balls.

He raises an eyebrow. “It ain’t gonna suck itself, Barnes.”

Bucky laughs all the way to his knees, and then he isn’t laughing because he’s too preoccupied mouthing the clothed bulge at Sam’s groin. 

Sam hisses, pressing his hands against the ugly cream wallpaper to steady himself. Bucky has hooked his other thumb into Sam’s pants too and is pulling them down, leaving Sam in just his briefs. Bucky rubs his face over them, his breath making the fabric cling hot and heavy to Sam’s cock.

“Holy shit,” Sam pants.

“Haven’t even gotten started, darlin’,” drawls Bucky, and Sam has a few choice thoughts about _that_ , but before he can get any of them out, his underwear is off and Bucky’s swallowed him down like—like—

Like something he can’t find an apt simile for, because his dick is just completely _enveloped_ , and Bucky’s cheeks go hollow as he sucks his way down to the end of it, wrapping his lips around the head so that when he pulls all the way off it makes this frankly obscene, wet, “pop” of a sound. And then Bucky licks a long stripe all the way up it, and then he’s got his mouth around it _again_ , only this time he’s doing something with his tongue, sweet Jesus Christ—

Sam gets lost in the sensations for an embarrassingly short period of time. Or it would be embarrassing, if he were feeling reflective.

As it is, he’s more concerned with his extremely imminent orgasm.

He does his best to stutter out a warning: “Fuck, Bucky, I’m gonna come—”

Bucky pulls all the way off, leaving Sam’s dick rock-hard and cruelly unattended because he’s a _fucking asshole_ , and gives him a dry look. “That’s kind of the idea.”

And then he’s back in Bucky’s throat and he’s shooting off, and Bucky is swallowing him down like he’s a black hole and Sam just blew his load into the event horizon. 

It’s an unsexy comparison, but sue him, he can’t think right. Bucky doesn’t spill a drop, licking his lips when he finally pulls off.

He claps Sam on the shoulder as he stands up. “I call dibs on the bathroom.”

And then there’s the sound of a door closing, and then of Bucky using up all the hot water like the complete _ass_ that he is, and Sam is left leaning against the wall, dick still out, wondering what the hell just happened.

Sam learned pretty quickly that Barnes was a tactile sort of guy because Barnes was always touching him. Not enough to be weird, but enough for someone with Sam’s specific background and training to pick up on it.

He’d first registered it when they’d agreed to put aside their vague mutual antagonism and work together. They had shaken on it, a very manly handclasp. And then Bucky had pulled their hands towards his chest and rested them there. It hadn’t lasted long, just enough for Sam to feel Bucky inhale once. And then it was over, and Sam was left thinking, huh.

The pattern might not have been so obvious without that first point of contact. As it was, that sparked enough suspicion in Sam’s brain that he noticed how during those early days, when he was struggling to master the fundamentals of fighting with a giant metal Frisbee, Bucky would press up beside or behind him. He’d cover Sam’s hands with his own, bending his fingers to grip with exactly the right amount of pressure.

That made sense. But then there were times when Bucky lingered just for a second longer than strictly necessary, his own fingers flexing like he wasn’t sure he wanted to let go. Or the way he’d slap Sam on the back those times when Sam nailed a toss or made the shield ricochet in a particularly elegant way. Just a friendly, buddy-buddy gesture, except for how they weren’t really buddies at all, and also Bucky would sometimes rub little circles on Sam’s shoulder blades, before he realized what he was doing and quickly stepped away from him. 

And it wasn’t like Bucky was exactly social, but Sam noticed it with the few other people with whom Bucky had mostly friendly interactions—how he’d bump Sharon’s shoulder with his own when they were laughing at something (usually Sam). Or how he seemed to give really good hugs to those he deemed worthy of them, which were basically just Steve, Sharon, and Shuri (okay, they looked like _great_ hugs: big and encompassing, Bucky resting his chin on the hugee’s shoulder or head, rubbing his hands up and down their backs like they were hypothermic and he had to warm them up. Sam wasn’t jealous. It was just hard to miss, how warm and safe those hugs looked.)

Skin hunger, Sam figured. Touch starvation. He got it too, sometimes, the need to just be physically close to someone you trusted. It was something more than one of his vets had admitted to experiencing, usually with no small amount of shame. He always patiently talked them through those feelings, through recognizing that it was normal, toxic military masculinity norms be damned.

The point was, Sam knew Barnes was a tactile sort of guy, but he was 100% confident that there was never anything sexual about it. So the dick-sucking thing kinda came out of left field.

He mulls it over for the next few weeks: while he’s practicing flying with Bucky, gripping tight to his extremely firm biceps; while they’re stuck in meetings with Ross and Buck is bouncing his shapely legs impatiently; while he’s taking a nice, steamy shower by himself.

Nothing feels different. Bucky isn’t eyeing him in the locker room, or asking him out for sushi and a long walk in the Arboretum. He continues to be an extremely irritating bee in Sam’s bonnet. A bee that gave him a really great blowjob that one time.

Sam finally decides that watching a HYDRA base get blown up probably just turned Bucky on. That’s understandable, right? He understands that.

Except then Bucky drops to his knees in their shared cabin after the hyper-intelligent dolphin incident off the coast of Ni’ihau. He glances up at Sam for permission, and Sam is dizzy in a way that has nothing to do with how choppy the waters still are, on account of the spell they used to banish the Lovecraftian horror that the dolphins summoned. 

So Sam just nods, and then Bucky is bobbing on his cock roughly in time with the rocking of the boat. It’s hot. It’s real hot, even though he has to jam his fist in his mouth to keep from moaning, lest Strange or someone else here him through the extremely thin walls.

He taps Bucky’s head to warn him of the imminent orgasm building up in his balls, but Bucky just rolls his eyes at him. So Sam just kinda shrugs and then he’s coming, and Bucky swallows him clean once again.

As he’s pulling off Sam’s dick someone yells that there are whales swimming near the boat. Bucky’s eyes light up, and he says something about not believing that the military is paying for their whale watch. Then he claps Sam on the shoulder and skedaddles, presumably to go watch some whales.

(They’re still there by the time Sam recovers and stumbles out of the cabin, and he’s gotta admit that they are pretty cool—thankfully they seem endowed only with normal cetacean intelligence, and they are every bit as majestic as Sam has imagined, those few times he ever imagined whales. Except he can’t really appreciate them like he normally would, because he’s _still_ wondering what the hell just happened.)

And then things are back to normal, just like they were after the first blowjob. It’s starting to feel like a pattern. Does two times make a pattern? Sam isn’t quite sure.

Three definitely does. They’re in a hotel room again, after successfully negotiating with aliens in Montana that had taken a farmer’s prize cow hostage. And this time, Sam manages to recover in the few seconds between the now-customary post-blowjob shoulder pat, and Bucky sneaking into the bathroom to damn Sam to an icy shower.

“You, uh, you want me to return the favor?” he asks, the sentence coming out just as awkward as he feels inside, while completely failing to reflect the eager anticipation also thrumming in his veins.

Bucky looks like him like he’s turned into an intergalactic being with a weakness for bovines. “What favor?”

Sam stares back. “Do you want me to blow you?”

Buck frowns. “That’s not a ‘favor,’” he says, actually making air-quotes because he’s very, very lame like that. “Why would I do you a ‘favor?’”

“You want the blowjob or not?” Sam asks, very narrowly avoiding tacking on an “asshole” to the end of the sentence.

“Nah, I’m good.” And then Bucky goes into the bathroom, and by the time he’s done, Sam is stuck with the coldest water this side of the Mississippi to scrub off the scent of cows and alien slime, and somehow that still isn’t as frustrating as the fact that he still has no idea what the fuck Barnes’s game is.

There is exactly one person who could conceivably offer Sam advice on this situation. He’s possibly the oldest man alive, everyone thinks he’s dead, and he looks and sometimes acts like the elderly white grandpa that Sam never had nor wanted.

“What’s bothering you?” Steve asks at their semi-biweekly brunch meetup.

It’s very unfair that he can read Sam so well, when half the time Sam can’t tell if he’s actually listening or if he’s fallen asleep with his eyes open (he never has that Sam actually knows about, but it’s a possibility Sam can’t rule out. He knows how the elderly operate).

Sam mulls over his response to the question. He really needs to talk about this with someone. But is it ethical to talk about the whole situation with the man who’s also Bucky’s closest friend? What if he’s outing Bucky? Does Steve know about the things Bucky apparently enjoys?

“Sam?” prompts Steve. He’s starting to actually look concerned. 

“Bucky has been acting kind of… strange,” Sam says carefully.

For all that he thought over his words, he somehow didn’t consider the extremely predictable result of Steve instantly becoming panic-stricken at the mere mention of something being up with Bucky.

“He’s fine,” Sam says quickly. “Really. Totally normal. Except—”

“Except…?” Steve repeats, still frowning.

“There’s this… thing he keeps doing. After missions.” He’s going through with this because he needs emotional support, and he really, desperately hopes this isn’t going to mess up things with Bucky.

“Okay.” Steve waits. His frown deepens when Sam very obviously takes an overlarge bite of French toast rather than elaborating.

“...is it blowjobs?”

Thankfully, Sam is almost done swallowing, so his choking fit only lasts for about a minute. Steve helpfully pounds him on the back with a slap that feels almost as strong as it did when his hair was still blond.

“How,” Sam asks, once he’s swallowed a sufficient amount of chilled orange-guava juice to soothe the pain in his esophagus, “do you know about the blowjobs?”

Steve winces a little and looks away. “They might be my fault.”

“You _asked_ Barnes to blow me?” Sam asks incredulously, and a little loudly, if the looks he gets from the table of brunch grandmas next to them is any indication (it’s moments like these that he’s very grateful that the brunch demographic tends to be exceedingly bad at recognizing him in public).

“What? No,” Steve says, shaking his head. “No. Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know,” Sam says helplessly. “Man, I don’t know _what’s_ going on.”

Steve sighs. “I got in fights a lot when I was younger, and I wasn’t very good at winning. So half the time, it’d be Bucky who’d pull me out., And you know, sometimes the fights would be over something stupid, but a lot of the time they’d be things I cared about—guys catcalling the dames on the streets, or giving the working girls trouble, or being racist assholes. Things like that. So I’d be real steamed after, even if Bucky had shown up in time to give the others a good licking.”

It’s unsettling how Steve alternates between sounding like an actual old person, and sounding like his former modern self, but Sam has become better at ignoring it. “Okay?”

“And the thing was, if I didn’t calm down, my asthma would flare up. So then I’d be struggling to breathe, and my ribs or my nose or whatever would be all bruised, and it’d just be a real bad situation all around. So Bucky would want to distract me. Except there weren’t a lot of things that would actually take my mind off of whatever made me mad. But the one thing that always worked…”

“…was a blowjob,” Sam finishes. Jesus _Christ_.

Steve nods and sips his coffee. “Yep. It kinda became our thing. I think it also might’ve been a consolation prize for how bad I was at fighting, but I’m not sure.”

“But I’m _good_ at fighting,” Sam argues, and it sounds trite, but it’s _true_. He’s no sniper, but even without the wings he’s perfectly capable of holding his own. 

“I know.” Steve shrugs. “He did it sometimes during the war, too. It’s not entirely Pavlovian. He enjoys it. And…” Steve starts, but then he shakes his head. “Never mind.”

“Nope. Uh-uh. This is _not_ the time to be holding back intel. Tell me what you know or I’m not taking you back to your nursing home.”

Steve, who still drives a motorcycle and who owns multiple properties both here in DC and in New York, flips him off. “It’s nothing, really. I was just going to say that it’s not like he would suck _anyone’s_ dick, you know? He wasn’t going down on any of the other Howlies. That I know of.”

Sam stares at him. “What are you implying?”

“Nothing.” Steve shrugs. “Also, I mean. We never did anything in the 21st century.”

Sam stares some more. Finally he asks, in a slightly strangled voice, “Are you saying that he _likes_ likes me?”

“I’m not saying anything,” Steve says primly, and then, more serious, he adds, “Do you want him to stop? He’d never want to make you uncomfortable. Not about something like this, anyway.”

Sam shakes his head without having to think about it. “No, I know that. And no. He always asks before he does it. I just want to know what the hell is going on in his head.”

Steve laughs a little bit. “You’re preaching to the choir, pal.”

“So what should I _do_?” Sam asks, maybe a little desperately. “I mean—he doesn’t want me to do it back to him. Not the one time I asked.”

Steve shrugs. “I don’t know. I mean, I couldn’t really blow him back, on account of the asthma. But he’s always been more of a giver than a taker, and you know he has a hard time being vulnerable; I wouldn’t take it personally. Maybe bring him flowers? Chocolates?”

“How are you _this_ old and _this_ bad at giving advice?”

“I can’t help you if you can’t even tell me what you want,” Steve says, which. Okay. Fine. Maybe that actually makes a little bit of sense.

“Besides,” Steve adds sagely, “we used to have a saying when I was younger: don’t look a gift blowjob in the mouth.”

“I hate you,” Sam says moodily, jabbing his French toast with a little more force than strictly necessary. “I really, really hate you.”

Sam knows that Barnes is a tactile sort of guy, and also he is currently having a middle-schoolesque crisis about whether or not Barnes _likes_ him, and whether or not he _likes_ Barnes. He’s pretty sure they don’t actually like each other, but that definitely doesn’t preclude them _liking_ each other. It’s all very confusing.

So since he knows Bucky likes touch, he decides to try touching him more. Not in a weird way: just little things like brushing Bucky’s fingers with his own when Bucky hands him the shield or a mission briefing. Patting Bucky’s head after Sam deposits him on solid ground during what was _supposed_ to be a training flight, before flying off to stop the not-really-dangerous-but-very-stupid schmuck in a knockoff Falcon suit before he gets himself killed. And running his hands carefully over Bucky to check to make sure that he didn’t get speared by any of the barbs shot off the gargantuan mutated rosebushes that had sprouted outside an abandoned Gothic manor in West Virginia.

To be fair, he also gets handsy with Sharon and Maria Hill after the rosebush incident, since, as the one with the most medical training (Sharon’s fake nursing degree notwithstanding), it feels like his responsibility to make sure no one got stabbed by potentially poisonous thorns. But he maybe lets his touches linger just a little more with Bucky, trotting his fingers up his calves, smoothing his palms over his pecs. 

This, Bucky definitely notices. Sam can feel his eyes on him as he makes his way up Bucky’s body. Can a gaze feel hungry? Because Buck’s definitely does.

When Sam gets to checking his face and neck for puncture marks, Bucky’s eyes meet his, and then, because Bucky is a dick, he licks his lips. Not so slow that it’s _obvious_ , but the way he flicks his tongue is familiar, except for the fact that Bucky is currently on two _feet_ instead of two _knees_.

“All set,” Sam announces, hoping his voice isn’t actually an octave or so higher, the way it sounds to his ears. Bucky smirks.

Bucky is a _dick_.

Sharon and Hill are staying behind to supervise the intelligence agents as they descend upon the manor to try to find intel on the rose bushes. That means it’s just him and Bucky for the ride back to DC. 

“You and Bucky seem to be getting along better,” Sharon comments as she walks him to the car, where Bucky is waiting impatiently.

“What? No. No, we absolutely are not.”

Sharon gives him a sharp look that reminds him, with a pang, of Natasha. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean, Agent Carter?”

She punches his shoulder. “You,” she says as they draw near the car, “are not nearly as subtle as you think you are. Neither of you.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“No surprise there,” says Bucky. Sam flips him off, hugs Sharon goodbye, and gets into the driver’s seat, because Bucky drives like someone who got his license long before the advent of modern traffic regulations.

After about an hour of mostly-quiet driving, barring their routine argument about whose turn it is to pick the music, Bucky glances over at him and asks, “So, you ever had road head?”

It’s only through years of carefully honed instincts that Sam avoids slamming on the brakes out of sheer shock. “Absofuckinglutely not.”

“Alrighty.” Bucky stretches as best he can in the confines of the car, then lets his seat back a few degrees and seems to fall asleep. 

_Asshole_. Sam turns down the music.

They have to head back to headquarters to write up the rosebush incident. It is work that absolutely could be done from their respective apartments, but because Ross is a power-hungry asshole, he insists they do it onsite.

HQ also comes with locker rooms, and it’s there that Bucky turns to Sam with a raised eyebrow.

Maybe he shouldn’t be surprised, seeing as Bucky literally offered to give him road head, but _still_ —

“What—here?”

“It’s late. Didn’t see anyone else here when we got in.” Bucky shrugs. “We can go in a stall. If anyone asks, we’ll say I was checking out a weird mole on your dick.”

This seems like it might be a bad idea. Sam knows that. His dick, which has unfortunately started developing its own Pavlovian response to the end of missions, does not.

Still, he’s gotta at least pretend that he’s got _some_ self-control. “You into exhibitionism, Barnes? That what gets you going?”

Bucky raises an eyebrow, wearing that same stupid smirk he’d had when Sam had gotten through feeling him up earlier. “Maybe.”

“That mean you’re gonna let me suck your cock after?”

Bucky hums. “Someone as pretty as you doesn’t deserve to be on his knees in a shitty bathroom like this, so no, probably not.”

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” Sam says helplessly, and about forty seconds later it’s Bucky who’s on his knees, and okay, the bathroom wall is really grimy and gross and cold under Sam’s scrabbling fingers. But Bucky’s mouth is warm and wet, and fuck, he’s doing the thing with his tongue again, his thumbs rubbing circles into Sam’s thighs, where his hands are gripping tight. 

And maybe Sam is kind of into the whole semi-public thing too, because he’s done in even less time than usual, Bucky clapping him on the shoulder and sauntering off to the showers. Sam takes a minute to catch his breath, then follows.

It’s far from the first time they’ve showered together—not even the first time since the whole blowjob business started—so there’s not much about Bucky’s naked body that Sam hasn’t seen before. It’s a little bit reassuring to have some physical evidence that he’s at least a little bit turned on by what just transpired. Not that Sam is surprised; Bucky’s tac pants are _tight_ , so he’s glimpsed hints of him at half-mast before.

But still. Seeing the real thing unclothed is… nice.

Bucky catches his eyes and grins. He stretches, letting the water sluice down his well-defined chest, into the trail of dark hairs that guide down to between his legs. His nipples are a pert, blushing pink underneath the cold water (for once, the shower’s frigidity is unrelated to Bucky being a hot water bandit; it’s just that Ross or whoever is bankrolling this whole operation doesn’t think such luxuries are worth springing for).

“You know,” Sam says as Bucky steps out of the shower proper, “seems to me you’re not too bad-looking yourself, for someone who’s willing to get on his knees in a shitty bathroom like this.”

To Sam’s satisfaction, the laughter he gets in response actually seems tinged with a bit of surprise. “You sweet-talkin’ me now, Wilson?”

Sam follows him out of the shower. “We’re gonna have to talk about it some time.”

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to look a gift blowjob in the mouth?”

Sam stops toweling himself off for a second to stare incredulously at Bucky. “Have you and Steve been talking about me behind my back?”

(He fully recognizes that the offense he feels is not reasonable, given that he spoke to Steve about Bucky behind Bucky’s back, but _still_.)

Bucky frowns. “It’s an old saying. Why would I waste what time I have with Steve talking about you? Not everything’s about you, you know.”

Bucky proceeds to very, very slowly slide his briefs up his legs, letting the elastic snap against his hips. He then adjusts himself, gripping his junk with his right hand while using his left to seat his underwear properly on his ass. 

Sam doesn’t mean to be narcissistic, but he’s _pretty sure_ that little display is in fact about him.

He pulls on his own boxers with much less finesse. If Bucky wants a show like that, he’s going to have to work for it. “One of these days you’re gonna ask to suck my cock, and I’m gonna tell you to buy me dinner first.”

“Yeah?” Bucky raises an eyebrow. “I gotta say, it seems like you’ve been pretty happy with how things have been going.”

“You telling me I’m not worth dinner? Ouch.”

“There are a lotta things I’m okay with you putting in my mouth,” Bucky informs him, “but words are _not_ among them.”

Sam can’t help the startled laugh that gets from him. God damn it. 

He busies himself with pulling on his shoes so he can have time to formulate a response. His banter with Bucky normally flies like bullets, but this is—different. It actually feels like something is at stake here. 

“I’m just saying,” he says as they walk out together. “At some point, we’re gonna have to address the fact that you’d apparently rather blow me than hug me.”

Buck glances at him, and for a hot second Sam thinks that he’s going to actually offer to hug him, and his heart maybe starts thumping hard, because from what he’s seen, Bucky gives _great_ hugs.

Except then they’re standing face-to-face with General Ross, who was apparently rounding the corner right as they were exiting the locker room. And right as Sam was speaking.

He stares at them.

“General,” Bucky says, and Sam quickly follows with, “Evening, General.”

“Boys,” says Ross. He’s frowning now.

Sam calmly ignores how the diminutive word rankles at him. “Something we can help you with?”

“No,” Ross says after a moment. “I don’t think so. As you were,” and then he’s pushing past them into the bathroom.

Sam and Bucky glance at each other and, coming to a mutual, silent agreement not to discuss what just happened, head to their desks to write up the rosebush incident.

The next morning—well, early afternoon—Sam wakes up to an email informing him that he and Bucky are to attend mandatory counseling sessions together, their first one being in about an hour.

“God _damn_ it.”

The session is… not going well.

Look. Sam isn’t opposed to therapy. He spent extensive time doing both one-on-one and group sessions when he got back after Riley’s death, and they saved him, they really did. There were weeks when he couldn’t bring himself to leave his apartment except to go to his appointments because he genuinely liked his therapist and didn’t want to let him down. His PTSD would’ve consumed him without the support.

And obviously, he would’ve never gotten his Master’s in Social Work, would’ve never taken the job with the VA, if he thought there wasn’t genuine healing to be found through therapy. It’s not perfect, it’s often not as effective on its own as it is when combined with other treatments, and there are lots of phenomenally bad and culturally-incompetent therapists out there. He’ll be the first to acknowledge all those things. But he still thinks that on the whole, it has a lot of value.

The thing is, though, the thing he told vets and their worried family members over and over again, is that people have to _want_ help for it to be of any use. You can lead a vet to advice and resources and coping mechanisms, but you can’t make them take advantage of those things if they don’t want them.

Sam does not want to be here. And, judging by the mutinous look in his eyes, Bucky feels much the same way.

Their therapist, a PsyD from Stanford, also has the distinct air of someone who would rather be doing paperwork, or profiling serial killers, or something like that. She’s been trying to get them to talk for the better part of an hour.

Bucky’s responses are usually single words, dripping with the disdain of a man who spent 70 years getting his thoughts pulled out of his head without his permission. Sam’s responses are… not much better.

He knows that, as a (former) mental health professional himself, he should be sympathetic, but come _on_. The doc has got to know that she’s just being used as a pawn in one of Ross’s power games, right?

She sighs in frustration and tries a different tactic. “Look, I think you both know that General Ross recommended this following a comment that you made, Mr. Wilson, regarding Mr. Barnes’s lack of… affection towards you. What did you mean when you said that?”

“It just really hurts my feelings that Bucky won’t hug me,” Sam deadpans.

“He never asked me for a hug,” Bucky informs the doctor, his voice equally monotone.

“Okay.” She nods and writes something down, probably noting that Bucky’s longest sentence arrived at approximately 50 minutes into their session. “Mr. Wilson, how do you think Bucky feels about you?”

“Sometimes it seems like he just uses me for my wings and my extremely strong and sculpted arms, when he needs to get his ass extracted from a shootout.”

“Mr. Barnes, how would you respond to that?”

Bucky tries, and fails, to tip back his bolted-down chair. “No comment.”

She closes her eyes and rubs at her temples, not the first time she’s done so since their session began. “Okay. Our hour is almost up, and I like to end my sessions on a positive note, so we’re going to try something different. I’d like you both to turn your chairs to face each other.”

There’s a moment of silence where they both try to determine if she’s serious. She raises an eyebrow.

Once they’ve complied, she continues, “Great. Now I want each of you to look the other in the eye and say one nice thing about each other. _To_ each other.”

The chairs are attached to the floor, but they can swivel. What that means, practically speaking, is that there really isn’t much room for two large men to sit face-to-face, when they can’t even scoot back or anything. Their knees have to go somewhere.

Bucky’s knees have decided to go between Sam’s legs.

Sam had originally tucked his feet down under the chair, but because he’s a gentleman, he decides to follow Bucky’s lead. He adjusts his posture, not breaking eye contact, and brings his left leg to rest right up against Bucky’s groin, much as Bucky is currently doing to him.

Bucky smirks and leans forward. Leans his _leg_ forward, and shifts it just a bit against Sam’s dick.

 _Oh_. So _that’s_ the game they’re playing.

Bucky raises an eyebrow, and Sam knows, with the same certainty he felt that first time in the hotel room, that he could very easily pull away from this, and Bucky wouldn’t say anything or judge him. They could each just give a bullshit answer to the doctor’s demands and be done with the whole thing. 

But the whole kinda public thing last night… that was pretty hot. And it’s all under and on the other side of the table, so there’s no real way for the doctor to see. And he’s always been a bit of a thrillseeker, right?

Also, he’s already hard.

Sam presses his knee down and starts bouncing his leg up and down—enough for it to pass as a nervous tic, but also enough so that he’s basically vibrating against Bucky’s crotch.

Bucky’s grin widens. He grinds down into Sam under the guise of stretching, cracking his back and extending his legs as far out as they’ll go in the confined space.

A sharp shiver of thrill runs through Sam’s body. They’re actually doing this; Bucky’s dick feels hard as his own does, and he’s responsible for that.

“Gentlemen?” prompts the doctor. “One thing. Come on. I’m sure you can come up with something.”

“Gimme a moment to think about,” says Bucky, his voice remarkably calm. “Sam has so many good qualities. It’s hard to just pick one.”

“Bucky, what I like about you,” says Sam, punctuating the word “like” with a twist of his knee that makes Bucky’s dick twitch perceptibly through his pants, “is that you’re the giving type. You might put up a front of being a real jerk, but at the end of the day, you’re kinda generous to your friends. From what I’ve seen, anyway.”

“Thank you, Mr. Wilson,” says their therapist. “That’s touching to hear. Mr. Barnes?”

“Sam, you’re very good at moisturizing.” How is Bucky keeping a straight face? His knee is rubbing into Sam in small circles, and Sam knows he isn’t going to last much longer. “When you come and pick me up to fly us away after I’ve saved our asses, your hands are always so soft and gentle.”

“Thanks, man. You ever want to do something about all that dry skin you’ve got, I can recommend you some products.”

Bucky’s lips twitch, but he doesn’t answer. It’s probably his imagination, but he’d swear on Steve Roger’s fake grave that he can feel the heat of Bucky’s cock through all the layers that separate it from his knee.

“See, that wasn’t so hard,” says their therapist, in a voice that suggests that it was in fact extremely hard to listen to.

His eyes are still locked with Bucky’s. Bucky is more familiar with Sam’s tells than Sam is with his; he must be able to glean how close Sam is getting.

Buck tilts his head just a little. Yeah, he knows.

“Okay, what are you doing?” asks the therapist, and all right, look, Sam doesn’t exactly _like_ working for Ross, he certainly doesn’t want to be doing it long-term, but he absolutely did _not_ want to be how he lost this job. His pulse has hit the roof, shit, _shit_ , how to play this off like he and Bucky aren’t currently locked in a get-off face-off—

“Are you having a staring contest?”

Bucky lowers his head a little bit, like he’s working just as hard at not laughing as he is at not coming. Sam raises his eyebrows, putting a little bit more force behind the leg he’s still shaking up and down.

“Just blink, sweet _Jesus_ , I mean how old _are_ you?” She snaps her fingers and Sam glances over at her reflexively, and then Bucky does _something_ with his knee, twists it _just_ right, and Sam has barely enough time to turn back to Bucky before he’s coming in his pants.

All the years he’s spent gaining control of his body have led up to this point. He doesn’t jerk his hips forward to chase the pleasure, doesn’t so much as twitch out of turn. The only sign he gives of what just happened is raising his eyebrows at Bucky. _You won._

Bucky glances at the therapist and then back to Sam. He smirks and leans forward a little. His hands—flesh fingers and vibranium alike—are twitching where they’re clenched together. Sam can feel how hard he still is, how he’s so, _so_ close to losing control—

Sam smiles back at Bucky and pulls his leg away.

Far as he sees it, it’s a lot easier to hide a come stain on dark pants than it is to hide in erection in the skintight numbers that Bucky favors.

“Sorry, ma’am,” he says to their therapist, not missing the half-second of hateful glare that Bucky shoots him. “I just got lost in his eyes for a second. You know how it is.”

“Right.” She has the look of someone who’s going to pour herself an extremely stiff drink as soon as they leave her office. He sympathizes.

“Well, though I think we made a lot of progress at the end, our hour is _unfortunately_ over. _Wait._ ” 

She holds up her hand as Sam starts turning his chair around, in the opposite direction from Bucky this time. Bucky is still sitting slumped, doubtlessly envisioning Old Man Roger’s naked body, or something to that effect, in an attempt to make his escape less awkward.

“I’m giving you homework. Non-negotiable,” she adds as they both open their mouths to protest. “Before you come in next week, I want you to spend one hour together, doing something not work-related. Training at the gym doesn’t count. And you can’t say anything mean to each other. That’s a rule.”

“Are we talking one _consecutive_ hour, or one _total_ hour?” asks Sam. “I mean, would two thirty-minute hangouts work?”

“Or thirty two-minute hangouts?” adds Bucky. Sam nods in agreement.

“One _consecutive_ hour, and if you start arguing, you have to reset the clock. And I’ll be asking each of you about it separately when we meet next week, so at the very least, you’re gonna have to get together and get your stories straight. Any questions?”

“An hour together without any arguing? I don’t know how we’d do that, unless we kept our mouths full,” Bucky says, straight-faced. Sam coughs.

“Great. You can go get ice cream together, or something. You’re dismissed.”

She busies herself with the notebook in front of her, apparently not paid enough to pretend to put up with them outside of their sixty-minute slot. Fair enough.

Bucky saunters out a few steps ahead of Sam. His… situation seems mostly under control. Maybe it’s a super-soldier thing? The ability to make your boners wilt at will?

He slows his steps enough for Sam to fall into line besides him. “You fight _dirty_ ,” he hisses as they walk out together.

Sam smiles, not looking at him. “You keep sweet-talkin’ me like that, Barnes, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’m getting the shivers already.”

Bucky huffs, apparently too sexually frustrated to come up with a better response. “You’re gonna make me buy you dinner, aren’t you?”

“Mmhmm.” He bumps his shoulder into Bucky’s. “Might even ask you to talk about your feelings while we’re at it.”

“I just _did_ that,” whines Bucky. Actually _whines_. Jesus, Sam worked him up something good. This is the proudest he’s felt since the first time he got the shield to boomerang back to him.

“Hey.” They’ve just passed out of HQ, into the sunlight of DC in the late afternoon. Sam stops, and Bucky pauses too.

Sam claps him on the shoulder. “Think of it this way. You make it through dinner with me, and we don’t insult each other for a whole hour? Far as I’m concerned, that counts as a successful mission.”

Bucky’s eyes widen a bit. He licks his lips, and this time, Sam can’t actually tell if it’s subconscious or deliberate. “You drive a hard bargain, Wilson.”

“Oh, the bargain’s not the only thing that’s going to be hard.’” He spins around just in time to avoid the halfhearted punch Bucky throws at his arm for that.

“I hate you,” Bucky calls as he lopes away to his car, laughing.

“Yeah, yeah. Text me a time and place. I’ll be waiting.”

Bucky Barnes is a tactile sort of guy, and Sam—well, it turns out Sam’s not all that different. And he’s pretty sure that some day real soon, he’ll finally get to properly touch Bucky back.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> per the recent Falcon and Winter Soldier comic series, Bucky does in fact think that Sam has gentle hands.
> 
> comments are always extremely appreciated.


End file.
